


breaking, better, can't be fixed

by HereThereBeFic



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, not a happy fic, probably shades of qpp/aromates/something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:51:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4114552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereThereBeFic/pseuds/HereThereBeFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>blood and pain and guilt do not seem like productive things to introduce into this situation</em>
</p><p>
  <em>(and yet.)</em>
</p><p>For a prompt on the Daredevil kink meme:</p><p>"comforting-after-nightmares is one of my favourite h/c-tropes and I am very sad that a fandom that has two guys who were roommates, one of which with enough issues to give him at least a few nightmares doesn't have one, yet."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. probably not fair

**Author's Note:**

> This... this got away from me. A bit.
> 
> warnings in chapter 1 for references to (canonical) child abuse and the death of a parent.
> 
> eta: fuck it i'm proud of this one. added myself as a co-author.
> 
> ETA one more time: here is an audio post that I will tentatively call a sort of podfic thing. <http://defectivevorta.tumblr.com/post/121269344314/breaking-better-cant-be-fixed-text>
> 
> ETA 3, Revenge of ETA: I removed anonymousdaredevils as a co-author since I de-anoned myself by making my actual account a co-author anyway; I figured this didn't belong on the anon account anymore.
> 
> ... _and then, with one final, anguished roar, ETA fell, never to rise again_.

Matt sleeps at odd hours.  
  
Foggy figures: first of all, they're  _students_.  _Students_  sleep at odd hours. Foggy has more than once woken up in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, just in time to rush to class, wondering when the hell he fell asleep. (Thursdays are, objectively speaking,  _the worst_. So close to the end of the week, Foggy's body jumps the gun and decides it's time to sleep  _now_.)  
  
Second of all, Matt has waved off his concerns every time he's voiced them, rattled off some fun facts about what exactly a complete lack of light perception can do to a person's sense of when it's time to sleep and when it's time to be awake, and somehow he always makes this sound  _reassuring_. (It usually takes about three days for his calm exasperation to fade from Foggy's memory, and then all that's left is the  _information_ , and Foggy starts worrying again.)  
  
Matt sleeps at odd hours, for odd lengths of time.  
  
Foggy will fall asleep at anywhere from eleven at night to two in the morning, knowing that Matt is still studying, knowing that Matt might  _still be_ studying when he wakes up. There will be long stretches when Matt seems to survive exclusively on naps: puts his head down in the library, collapses into bed between classes, lies down with headphones on and mouths along silently to whatever he's listening to, whatever it is that he remembers well enough to be lulled into a sort of half sleep that... honestly kind of freaks Foggy out.  
  
Then, of course, there's the meditation. Foggy likes to think he does a pretty darn good job at not laughing about the meditation. Matt swears it's better than sleep. Offered to show him how, once, but Foggy would – probably do a  _less_  darn good job, at not laughing, in that case, if he's honest with himself. Best not to risk it.  
  
Whatever works, right?  
  
Except it doesn't. Sometimes. And when it doesn't, it  _really_  doesn't.  
  
Foggy is sitting on his bed, actually, honestly  _studying_ , really genuinely  _applying himself_  to this awful fucking textbook, when Matt drags himself through the door and says “If I try to go to my next class, I want you to steal my cane and beat me over the head with it until I am  _unconscious_.”  
  
“Sure thing,” Foggy says, because it sounds better than  _what._ , which was the only other response he could think of. “Can you repeat that into a tape recorder?”  
  
Matt groans, kicks off his shoes and leaves them by the door with his bag(and the cane with which Foggy is apparently meant to deter him from furthering his education), sets his glasses on his nightstand and crawls into bed.  
  
Foggy blinks. “Oh – oh, hey, are you serious? You're going to  _sleep_? You – sorry, I just, I wanna be clear, do you want me to wake you up in a half hour or are you actually – are you  _actually_  skipping class?  _You_.”  
  
“I have not  _slept_ ,” Matt growls, into a pillow, “in four  _days_. I am skipping  _everything_ ,  _forever_. Goodnight.”  
  
“Night,” Foggy says, and wonders just how quietly this awful fucking textbook's pages can possibly be turned. Is an exhausted roommate a good enough excuse to stop studying?  
  
...No, probably not.  
  
He keeps reading, and he loses track of time. It might be an hour. It might be two. Matt starts moving, and Foggy realizes it's been... a  _while_ , since he's known Matt to sleep for more than maybe forty-five minutes at a time, and there are some questions which,  _most people dance around me like i'm made of glass_  notwithstanding, Foggy is  _just not willing_  to put either of them through, and one of those questions is  _so how does REM work for you?_  
  
He is now pretty fucking sure that, however it works, it  _does_ , because Matt sits up in bed and  _shrieks_.  
  
Not – not  _super loud_ , okay, maybe not in fact an  _actual shriek_ , but it's a small space and Foggy was not  _expecting that_ , and he's reacting before he is even consciously aware of anything, gets some sort of delayed startle when he's already halfway to Matt's bed, his heart is suddenly racing and the not-quite-situationally-correct thought  _you're not supposed to wake up sleepwalkers_  occurs just fast enough to give him the presence of mind to  _duck_  when he touches Matt's shoulder, which is  _good_ , because Matt's fist arcs through the air  _exactly_  where Foggy's nose would otherwise have been.  
  
“ _Matt_.” He shakes him, once, sharply, and then steps back, because he's finally catching up with himself and  _whoa_ , okay, Foggy,  _boundaries_ , what  _exactly_  are you doing?  
  
This is, somehow,  _not_  a scenario that has ever come up in their generally amiable discussions about what lines can and cannot be crossed, as roommates, as friends. Foggy is starting to think that's been a  _very_  serious oversight.  
  
Matt doesn't take another swing at him, at least. He shakes his head – once, twice, and then just continuously, for a few seconds. His mouth is moving but his voice does not seem immediately thrilled by the idea of doing its job. “Wh– What – Foggy?”  
  
“Uh.” Foggy realizes he is holding his hands up in front of himself, a  _useless_ , placating gesture. He drops them to his sides, embarrassed. “You were – you kinda. Yelled.”  
  
“Yelled?”  
  
“Kind of.”  
  
“ _Shit_.” Matt drops his head into his hands and suddenly he's shaking all over. “I – sorry,  _sorry_ , um. Thhhh-thanks.”  
  
“Uh – yeah, I mean, no problem. Um. Are you – you okay, dude?”  
  
Matt nods. It is not, altogether, what with the shaking and his hands still covering his face,  _convincing_.  
  
Foggy is a little bit lost, here. All he has to go on is what  _he_  would want  _Matt_  to do, if the situation were reversed, and, honestly – no, nope, he doesn't know  _that_  either. Awesome.  
  
“Do you, um.” He stops. Swallows. Breathes. “Do you wanna – talk–?”  
  
“ _No_.” Matt doesn't sound angry, exactly, or – not angry at  _Foggy_.  
  
And here is where Foggy  _hates his brain_.  
  
Because, see,  _okay_ , the situation  _is_  – Foggy  _knows_ , through entirely no fault of his own  _or_  Matt's, but, he  _knows_ , about  _two_  awful things that have  _happened_  to Matt, because once upon a time Foggy was hearing Matt's name on the news and wondering with equal parts awe and terror if  _he_  could ever be that brave, and once upon a time the rumor mill of Hell's Kitchen almost spun itself dry, running overtime on the question of what  _exactly_  happened to Battlin' Jack Murdock.  
  
And Foggy's brain is trying to – to  _work_  with this, to  _extrapolate_ , and he has  _no right_.  
  
“I don't,” he says, loudly, as much to interrupt his own treacherous thought processes as anything else. He clears his throat. “I don't... really know what to do, here. To be honest.”  
  
Matt shrugs, a helpless gesture that he puts his theatrical  _all_  into, going so far as to throw his hands up in the air. Which lets Foggy see his face, which is... streaked with tears, and  _burning_  red.  
  
Foggy takes a half step back towards the bed. “Can I... Can I sit? With you?”  
  
“ _Wh_ – um–“ The suggestion throws Matt  _completely_  off, and for a minute Foggy feels a little like he's watching an old computer trying to reboot after a crash. His face is just a  _tiny bit_  blue-screen-of-death.  
  
Finally, Matt swallows. “Um – I... Yeah. Yeah, g– go ahead.”  
  
Foggy takes a second to connect these words to anything, and then another second to remember how to move. Then he moves  _very quickly_ , settles heavily beside Matt before either of them can think better of this.  
  
For a while, nothing else happens. Foggy's heart is hammering in his throat, and he tries to swallow it down, tries to talk himself into being less freaked out on the grounds that  _Matt_  is already freaked out and if they're  _both_  freaked out, nothing is going to get accomplished, here.  
  
“I could,” Foggy starts, and then, because it's too late to not finish the sentence, “I could ask really terrible questions about how you dream, would that – maybe distract you?”  
  
Matt is covering his face again. Foggy  _thinks_  the noise he just made into his hands was a laugh. “I still get images, sometimes.”  
  
“Neat. Or. In this case, uh,  _awful_ , I guess. That's... pretty much the only terrible question I had, actually. Huh.”  
  
“You can find more. I believe in you.”  
  
“ _Thanks_ , buddy,” Foggy says, and takes the excuse to nominally  _sarcastically_  clap a hand to Matt's shoulder, and then just sort of happen to leave it there.  
  
Matt maybe leans into him, a tiny bit.  
  
So far, so... not disastrous.  
  
Foggy decides to push his luck. “Is this, um... Is this why you don't – sleep, at night, sometimes?”  
  
Matt shrugs, draws his knees up and hunches over himself. He doesn't lean away, though, so.  _So_. Foggy risks tightening his grip, just a little. A sort of – totally not weird, not line-crossing, supportive shoulder squeeze. He hopes. Matt's still  _shaking_.  
  
“I'm just–” Matt drops his hands away from his face again, takes a deep breath. “This isn't, um. Sometimes I just get – in, in certain – mindsets. You know? This isn't... Th-This isn't  _constant_ , I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, um. Scare you.”  
  
Foggy frowns. “Wh – oh, dude,  _no_ , this – I wasn't, like,  _mad_. I'm just – you know. Worried.”  
  
Matt looks as flummoxed by this news as he ever does when Foggy shows an ounce of concern for his wellbeing. He tries to hide it behind a laugh, which Foggy does not buy. “It's just –  _nightmares_ , Foggy, everyone has them.”  
  
“Yeah,” Foggy agrees, “and they kinda suck.”  
  
Matt's laugh now is startled, and a lot more genuine for it. “Yeah,” he says, and leans maybe slightly closer. “They really kinda do.”

* * *

The next time it happens, Foggy does not wake him up by shaking him.  
  
It's just – Matt came  _really close_  to actually hitting him, that first time, and blood and pain and guilt do not seem like productive things to introduce into this situation. So Matt wakes up to Foggy calling his name from a few feet away, and to a ball of crumpled up notebook paper bouncing off his forehead.  
  
“What,” he says, sitting up, and he sounds more confused than anything else. “What's...“ He finds the paper, frowns, and changes his question: “ _Why_?”  
  
“You sounded kinda.” Foggy may be rocking, just a bit, back and forth on his feet, because the paper thing seemed like a good idea at the time, but in retrospect it sort of screams  _dick move_. “Nightmare-y.”  
  
“Oh.” Matt is un-crumpling the sheet of paper. “Did you – need this?”  
  
“Uh, no, sorry.” Foggy swallows. “Last time, uh – last time you about clocked me on the nose, so, I figured. We could, just. Skip that part, you know, just in case.”  
  
Matt tenses up. “You... didn't tell me that.”  
  
“You didn't hit me,” Foggy assures him. “I didn't think it mattered. Just, you know, figured I wouldn't, uh. Risk it, again.”  
  
“...Good idea,” Matt says, at length. Then he crumples the paper back up and lobs it straight at Foggy, who catches it with a pleased, if surprised, laugh. “Hold onto that. For next time.”  
  
“Yeah, sure.”  
  
“How exactly did I – uh, 'sound nightmare-y'?”  
  
“Um.” Foggy has been waiting for that, has been dreading this exact question. “You were just. You know.”  
  
Matt sits up straighter. “No, I – I don't. I don't remember.”  
  
“Maybe leave it that way?” Foggy suggests.  
  
Matt huffs. “ _Foggy_.”  
  
Foggy gives in. It's probably not fair, anyway, for him to have _heard that,_ and not let Matt  _know_.“You were – talking. To your dad. Not, uh... Not under... the best circumstances, I don't... I don't think.”  
  
Matt goes very still. Exhales, slowly, and doesn't breathe in again for a few seconds. Then he says, quietly, “Thanks,” and lies back down, facing away from Foggy, and they leave it at that.

* * *

The next several times, scattered over a couple years, Foggy does in fact continue using the crumpled paper method. These things have varying end results – conversations, usually, long or short, open or terse. There are things Matt very clearly Does Not Want To Talk About, which is –  _fine_ , Foggy's not going to push, it's not his business. Sometimes they sit together and sometimes they don't. On one occasion Matt says absolutely nothing, gets up, gets dressed and  _leaves_ , comes back an hour later with a cup of coffee that he hands to Foggy and goes back to bed.  
  
And then –  
  
And  _then_.  
  
Foggy does not throw anything. And he does not touch him. He stands well back and says “Matt,” shouts, “ _Matt_ ,” bellows, “MATT!” until Matt sits up, sits _straight up_ and twists around with his hands up in front of his face like he's trying to block a  _punch_.  
  
Matt is shaking all over and this time so is Foggy, because this time –  _this_  time, there was no inarticulate shouting, there was no begging for a father to wake up;  _this time_ , Foggy was pulled from his studies by his roommate – by his  _best friend_ , at this point, he's pretty sure – thrashing violently and saying, over and over again,  _you're hurting me_.  
  
“ _Matt_ ,” Foggy whispers, doesn't mean to whisper but his voice won't go any louder, he thinks he might be about to  _cry_ , because –   
  
– because, “ _What_  was  _that_?”  
  
“Nothing,” Matt gasps, lowers his hands quickly from their defensive position, “nnnnothing, F-Foggy, nothing, just – just, just, just nightmares. Just... bullies.”  
  
Bullshit. “ _Bullshit_. I'm coming over there,” Foggy says, which is not what he  _meant_  to say, he meant to ask permission, that's how they do this, but Matt doesn't object when Foggy sits, doesn't flinch away when Foggy wraps an arm around him.  
  
Matt leans in, leans farther and heavier than he has before, brings his own arms up to wrap around Foggy and  _cling_ , even as he keeps up a desperate litany:  _it's nothing, it's nothing, it's **nothing**._  
  
And Foggy just holds him, isn't sure how to respond, settles on echoing back:  _you're okay, you're okay, you're **okay**._  
  
Foggy can't fix this and he knows Matt won't let him try.  
  
But in the morning, he stops Foggy at the door, and says, quietly, “Thanks. That... it helped.”


	2. like road rash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this could... probably do with a warning. lot of anxiety and worries, thoughts centered around friends dying young.

Foggy spends a lot of his nights on Matt's couch, lately. They don't talk about it. Matt will come home, rinse other people's blood off of himself and his (ridiculous,  _ridiculous_ ) suit, and if Foggy is still awake they might have a beer or some coffee or just a couple glasses of water, depending on the time and how much work they have tomorrow. And they don't talk about why Foggy is there.  
  
Or Matt won't come home.  
  
He won't come home, and Foggy will get a text, from Claire, telling him everything is under control. Which is a thing that gets said about  _situations_ , not  _people_ , and it always leaves Foggy wondering exactly what sort of situation Matt is in, that Claire has had to control, what now,  _what now_.  
  
Those nights are happening less and less often, which does less for Foggy’s nerves than he might have hoped; now any time Matt takes just a little too long coming home, he catches himself thinking,  _Maybe Claire’s out of town again_. He kicks himself out for a week, absolutely  _bans_  himself from Matt's apartment, and Matt spends a few days completely failing to not act confused and apprehensive around him at the office. Foggy calls him on the third night, early enough to actually catch him, and explains: “I just need. I just need to  _sleep_ , in my  _bed_ , and not sit up all night waiting to make sure you don't... It's just... I don't know. We're good, I'm not... trying to send some sort of  _message_. Be  _careful_.”  
  
It's just. It's  _just_. He thinks he might be working himself up to some sort of... point of no return, here. Anxiety is eating at him, clawing in his chest and his gut; he catches his hands shaking, sometimes, when he thought he was doing okay. When he's pretty sure it's been at least ten minutes since his mind wandered to Matt, barely conscious, taking a swing and missing, missing so wide Foggy didn't even have to duck, Matt gasping a phone number into the floor, bleeding and _bleeding_ and forbidding an ambulance.

Karen is starting to look at him the way he tries not to look at her – suspicious, worried, wondering what's happened. (He – hasn't quite forgiven Matt, yet. For Karen. For all the lies he's already told her, to protect him.)  
  
So he stays away for that week and it doesn't help. It doesn't help at all. He can't sleep. He can't eat. His thoughts are chasing themselves, approaching some sort of precipice that he can't let them go over, won't,  _can't_ ; he buries it all in work and he's twice as productive as he's ever been at his best.  
  
And then, the next Monday, he goes home with Matt. Grabs a beer, remembers how little he's had to eat and thinks better of it, puts it back. Watches quietly while Matt gets ready, while Matt puts on the ridiculous suit and they don't talk about it.  
  
Except this time they do. This time, Matt hesitates, at the window, and turns back around and says, “I won't be gone very long. I'm just kind of – patrolling, lately. Crime has been... down. Since. You know.”  
  
“Yeah,” Foggy says, and it feels like swimming through tar. They're not supposed to  _talk_  about this. “Yeah, I'll probably just. Hang out.”  
  
“Okay.” Matt waits a beat longer, and maybe Foggy can't tell that his  _breathing changes_  when he wants to say something, but.  
  
And then Matt is out the window.  
  
Foggy puts his shoes in the hallway and lies down on the couch.

* * *

He's on his way to work, but he can't find it.  
  
He can't find  _anything_ , actually. There's something wrong with the sidewalk. He thinks he's passed Josie's twice.  
  
“Have you heard from Matt?” says Claire, and that's funny, he doesn't remember her walking with him, but of course she is, she's been here the whole time. Hasn't she? She looks upset. “He hasn't called me. I'm worried about that wound on his back.”  
  
Wound?  
  
“He's lost a lot of blood. Put your hand here, and press down  _hard_ ,” Claire says, and Foggy tries to answer her but she's not here anymore. Karen is on his other side and he can't turn to look at her. She's there, she's definitely there. He thinks she wants to say something.  
  
They get to the office, finally, but someone has replaced it overnight with gleaming steel and high windows. They go inside and Foggy immediately loses Karen to the crowd.  
  
The crowd?  
  
Old classmates. Of course. Of course they are, it's a reunion, right, he forgot. Most of their faces are hazy or unfamiliar or both, but he remembers these people. He nods and smiles, negotiates a path to his desk, looks around for Matt. There's a group of people gathered by his office. Their heads are bent low – sad. Whispering.  
  
“It's just awful about Murdock,” says Marci. “You never really think about who won't be around for these things.”  
  
Foggy opens his mouth to ask what she's talking about, tries to take a step forward, towards the little group – can't move. Can't speak. There is something devouring him, from the inside out. Digging into him and  _pulling_ , between his ribs, tearing him apart.  
  
You never really think.  
  
You never really think.

* * *

“FOGGY!”  
  
Foggy opens his eyes and sits bolt upright, panting.  
  
There's a ball of crumpled paper in his lap. He stares at it. “What –  _what_?”  
  
“You sounded kind of...” Matt is standing in front of him, lit strangely by the billboard outside. He's still wearing his ridiculous, awful suit, but the cowl is off and in his hands. He clears his throat. “'Nightmare-y.'”  
  
Nightmares.  _Paper_. Foggy tries to laugh. This is funny, right? This should – this should be  _funny_. He can't get enough air in.  
  
Matt drops the cowl and pulls his gloves off, drops them too, sits down beside Foggy on the couch and wraps an arm around him. “Breathe,” he orders, and Foggy wants to snap,  _I'm **trying**  here_, but he can't speak. Can't move.  
  
_it's just awful about murdock_  
  
“ _Matt_ ,” he wheezes, turns and buries his face against that awful,  _awful_  suit. “Oh – oh  _fuck_ , Matt, don't  _die_. Don't –  _don't_ –”  
  
He's found the point of no return, the precipice his thoughts have been racing for, the  _wall_  he's been trying not to throw himself against and now it's  _broken_ , because –  
  
– because Matt is going to die. Matt is going to die  _young_ , get himself killed out in the streets by a lucky shot, a bad ricochet, a broken fucking neck. Matt is going to  _die_  and Foggy is going to  _keep getting older without him_ , and one day Foggy is going to be twice as old as Matt is now and Matt is going to be that friend Foggy used to have, back in their twenties and thirties, back when they were  _kids_ , before he  _got himself killed_.  
  
“Don't,” Foggy rasps, and then can't get any more words out, can't get  _anything_  out, he needs  _air_. He gasps for it, chokes on it – pushes away from Matt only to fall back against him, sobbing, “ _Don't you fucking die on me_.”  
  
Matt doesn't say anything, and Foggy knows there's  _nothing_. There isn't a solution, here. He can't say,  _I won't_. He can't say,  _I'll stop_. One is wishful thinking and the other is an outright lie.  
  
Matt just holds him.  
  
Maybe tomorrow, Foggy will think this was like ripping off a bandaid. Maybe tomorrow, he will realize he can finally think past the overwhelming cloud of  _dread_  that's been dogging him for weeks; all that worry, all that anxiety, building and building and now  _finally_  hitting a crescendo, nowhere else to go but back down(and start all over).  
  
But right  _now_ , it's like – it's like how ripping off a bandaid  _actually_  feels: there is no instant relief, it  _hurts_  and keeps hurting, fresh air on an open wound; Foggy feels  _raw_. It's like  _road rash_ , everywhere, gravel embedded in the essence of him.  
  
He pulls himself up or Matt down, cries down his neck because it's the only thing he can reach that's actually  _Matt_ , not the suit, not this – this  _thing_ , this thing that keeps him alive, this thing that's going to kill him.  
  
Matt's hands – no gloves,  _Matt's hands_  – are moving, up and down his back, and Matt is speaking now. His voice is – rough, but not broken.  
  
“I'm sorry, Foggy, I'm  _sorry_. I never wanted – I never wanted this.” And Foggy could almost,  _almost_  laugh, because this is still Matthew Fucking Murdock – he still forgets he's worth caring about, he is still  _so surprised_  that Foggy  _worries_. “I don't... I don't know what to do.”  
  
Foggy takes a deep breath and pulls himself back, sits up a little straighter – stops  _weeping down Matt's shirt_ , shit, he's going to be embarrassed about that later, maybe, probably – and says, “Go – go put on clothes you've never been  _beaten up in_ , and then just – come back and  _sit here_.”  
  
Matt does.  
  
It fixes nothing.  
  
But it helps.


End file.
